A Systematic Mapping Study of Code Quality in Education -- with Complete Bibliography

While functionality and correctness of code has traditionally been the main focus of computing educators, quality aspects of code are getting increasingly more attention. High-quality code contributes to the maintainability of software systems, and should therefore be a central aspect of computing education. We have conducted a systematic mapping study to give a broad overview of the research conducted in the field of code quality in an educational context. The study investigates paper characteristics, topics, research methods, and the targeted programming languages. We found 195 publications (1976-2022) on the topic in multiple databases, which we systematically coded to answer the research questions. This paper reports on the results and identifies developments, trends, and new opportunities for research in the field of code quality in computing education

Identificación de patrones de diseño para software científico a partir de esquemas preconceptuales

Los patrones de diseño son soluciones a problemas de diseño recurrentes en software científico. Estos patrones se usan para mitigar la ausencia de algunos aspectos de calidad inherentes al software. Los científicos, debido a su formación profesional, abordan diseños poco flexibles y difíciles de mantener en sus aplicaciones. Además, en ausencia de un lenguaje común con ingenieros de software se hace muy compleja la comunicación y validación del dominio de aplicación. Normalmente, las representaciones de los patrones de diseño se basan en diagramas de UML u otro tipo de grafos. Estos diagramas son difíciles de entender para los científicos e ingenieros de software inexpertos debido a su nivel de formalismo y, además, porque sólo representan el patrón de diseño aplicado y no el problema genérico que resuelven. Por otro lado, estos diagramas como unidad no poseen los elementos necesarios para representar completamente un dominio de software científico y se deben valer de la combinación de varios de ellos para hacerlo. Por ello, en esta Tesis de Maestría se propone una representación en esquemas preconceptuales de los patrones de diseño más usados en software científico y, además, la representación genérica del problema que resuelven. Adicionalmente, se presentan una serie de nuevos elementos para los esquemas preconceptuales que permiten la completa representación y validación de los dominios complejos presentes en el software científico. Al usar esquemas preconceptuales se facilita el entendimiento de los patrones de diseño debido a su proximidad con el lenguaje natural y a los elementos disponibles para su representación. Además, se hace posible la comunicación y validación del dominio de aplicación entre científicos e ingenieros de software. Este trabajo ayuda a la comunidad científica a hacer un diseño más robusto, flexible y fácil de mantener de su aplicación, y además, abre las puertas a la automatización de la implementación de los patrones de diseño a partir de una representación del dominio en esquemas preconceptuales.Abstract: Design patterns are solutions for recurrent design problems in scientific software. These patterns are used to mitigate the lack of several quality aspects inherent in the software. Scientists, due to their professional training, tackle little flexible and maintainable designs for their software applications. In addition, in the absence of a common vocabulary with software engineers, domain communication and validation becomes complex. Normally, design patterns representation are based on UML class diagrams or other kind of graphs. These diagrams are difficult to understand for scientist and inexperienced software engineers due to their level of formalism and, also because of this diagrams only represents the implemented design pattern and not the generic problem the design patterns solves. Furthermore, these diagrams as unity do not have the necessary elements to represent scientific software domains completely, so they must combine to do it. For this reason, in this Master’s Thesis it is proposed a representation of design patterns for scientific software by using preconceptual schemes, and also, a generic representation of the problem that design patterns address. Additionally, it is proposed a number of new elements for preconceptual schemes that allows a complete representation and validation of complex domains in scientific software. By using preconceptual schemes facilitates design patterns understanding due to their natural language proximity. In addition, it is made possible the validation and communication of application domain between scientists and software engineers. This work helps scientific community to make robust, flexible and maintainable software applications, and also, opens the doors to automated design pattern implementation from domain representation in preconceptual schemes.Maestrí

A Systematic Mapping Study of Code Quality in Education -- with Complete Bibliography

While functionality and correctness of code has traditionally been the main focus of computing educators, quality aspects of code are getting increasingly more attention. High-quality code contributes to the maintainability of software systems, and should therefore be a central aspect of computing education. We have conducted a systematic mapping study to give a broad overview of the research conducted in the field of code quality in an educational context. The study investigates paper characteristics, topics, research methods, and the targeted programming languages. We found 195 publications (1976-2022) on the topic in multiple databases, which we systematically coded to answer the research questions. This paper reports on the results and identifies developments, trends, and new opportunities for research in the field of code quality in computing education

Design Patterns in Scientific Software

This paper proposes that object-oriented design patterns can greatly help with the design and construction of scientific software. It describes a method of teaching design patterns which introduces patterns as they are used in refactoring, extending and reusing a computational science case study. The method has been taught into a graduate level eScience curriculum for three years